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Righteous Indignation

Righteous Indignation is the weekly UK based pod­cast that aims to crit­i­cally exam­ine extra­or­di­nary claims and the peo­ple who sur­round them. These include ideas related to con­spir­acy, the para­nor­mal, the occult and attempts to rede­fine the bound­aries of sci­ence and under­stand­ing.

Author and play­wright Michael Nugent is also the chair of Atheist Ireland, an organ­i­sa­tion which strives to achieve a sec­u­lar, super­stition free Republic. He dis­cusses recent changes in Irish blas­phemy laws, their impli­ca­tions and activism to oppose them.

A prac­tic­ing medium, Patricia Putt is best known as the British psy­chic who recently failed pre­lim­i­nary test­ing for the JREF $1m chal­lenge, scor­ing a grand total of zero per­cent. She talks to Trystan about the test, how she per­ceived its pro­to­cols and the changes that would need to be made for her to pass.

Dave Wood is the chair­man of ASSAP, the Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena, a char­ity that edu­cates the pub­lic on the sci­ence and facts behind a range of allegedly para­nor­mal phe­nom­ena. He is the co-founder of psy­chi­cal research group Paranormal Site Investigators and web­mas­ter of The Orb Zone, the only web­site that lays out the sci­en­tif­i­cally col­lected evi­dence to show that these pho­to­graphic anom­alies are any­thing but para­nor­mal. This is the one and only time we’ll be cov­er­ing the phe­nom­enon that should have been put to rest but remains in the mind of true believers.

A for­mer pro­fes­sional magi­cian, in 2002 Richard Wiseman was awarded Britain’s first Professorship in the Public Understanding of Psychology. He has pub­lished over 40 papers in ref­er­eed aca­d­e­mic jour­nals and is author of pop­u­lar sci­ence books ‘The Luck Factor’ and ‘Quirkology’. He takes time from his sched­ule to talk about his recent Twitter exper­i­ment and his new paper­back, ’59 Seconds’.

Host of the excel­lent Conspiracy Skeptic pod­cast Karl Mamer joins Hayley and Trystan from Ontario, Canada, to talk about the lure of con­spir­acy the­o­ries. He explores lies, those plots which were gen­uine, the North American Union, Michael Jackson rumours and ways in which the pub­lic can spot mis­in­for­ma­tion. Oh, and arch con­spir­acy pro­po­nent Alex Jones gets a men­tion or two.

Chris French is co-editor of ‘The Skeptic’ mag­a­zine and co-ordinator of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London. He joins Righteous Indignation to dis­cuss the work of the APRU, the test­ing of medium Patricia Putt for the Randi $1 chal­lenge and his role as res­i­dent skep­tic on ITV’s ‘Haunted Homes’ tele­vi­sion series.

A pro­lific colum­nist and para­nor­mal inves­ti­ga­tor, Michael J. Hallowell is co-author of the ‘South Shields Poltergeist’ with col­league Darren Ritson. He runs the Wraithscape web­site and is also the writer of ‘Invizikids’, a fas­ci­nat­ing exam­i­na­tion of imag­i­nary child­hood friends.

One of the most ver­sa­tile fig­ures in British skep­ti­cism, Simon Singh is cur­rently fight­ing a libel case brought against him by the British Chiropractic Association. He joins Righteous Indignation to dis­cuss the back­ground of the case, its cur­rent sta­tus and the poten­tial costs involved — both human and financial.

Skeptically inclined ufol­o­gist, radio broad­caster and founder of Swindon UFO Research, Chris Williams on the media’s role in per­pet­u­at­ing the UFO phe­nom­e­non and what could be the death of the tra­di­tional fly­ing saucer.

A pro­fes­sional broad­caster and writer on the sub­ject of astron­omy since the early 1970s, Ian Ridpath is the author of Collins Stars and Planets Guide. Away from the tele­scope Ian is a skep­ti­cally minded inves­ti­ga­tor of UFO cases. In 1983 his Guardian arti­cle ‘A Flashlight in the Forest’ shat­tered the notion that a UFO had crashed in Rendlesham Forest, Suffolk, and had been fol­lowed by US Air Force per­son­nel. In this inter­view Ian revis­its the case and clears up the com­plex­i­ties and mis­con­cep­tions that keep it a holy grail for UFO believers.